Category: Plants & People
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Food Source For Marginal Farmers, If It Doesn’t Poison Them
Scientists believe they have discovered a protein-rich starch staple in the yam bean in Peru.
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Native Plants Save Lives And Create Jobs
Scientists want to untangle the chemical makeup of… traditional remedies in search of new medicines that could help cancer patients. Their findings could also provide an economic cure for a region that has suffered the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the past decade.
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The Garden Of Eden Unprotected
We are relying too much on the relatively few cultivated varieties of crops. This puts us at risk from changing environmental conditions. And also [wild crop relatives] have genetic diversity that can provide us with resistance to pests and diseases.
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African Plant Discovered To Kill Mosquitoes
Polygonum Senegalese can work as a substitute to DDT in the control of malaria, since it tackles the mosquito problem right from the first stages of the mosquitos lifecycle.
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The False Promise Of Biofuels
Just in case you still thought that biofuels such as ethanol, biodiesel and biogas might be a sustainable solution to stem this pesky climate change thing, some sobering thoughts from Hartmut Michel, an eminent molecular biologist from the University of Frankfurt am Main.
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Have You Had Your Gum Arabic Today?
Not since baking soda has there been a natural commodity that has so many different uses.
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Putting Children In Children’s Gardens
Adults make many assumptions about children and gardening, and instead of enlisting the creativity and innovative thinking of young people, they often involve children in the more mundane tasks of planting, weeding, and watering.
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Zoo Landscapes Reduce Animal Stress
In addition to the significant overall improvement in the animals welfare after the shrubs were planted, the researchers found stress related behaviour specifically directed at the visitors, such as approaching the glass, reduced by 54 per cent.
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Developers vs.Conservationists… in Malaysia
Sitting in the fast developing suburb of Petaling Jaya, the forest is in the centre of a dispute between local residents and the state government over the conversion of some 140ha for a mixed development project.
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Brazil Nuts Save The Communities That Protect Them
Help is at hand for the Amazon rainforest and Brazil's poverty-stricken rural people – courtesy of the country's famous native nut.